"Flying Car Gets FAA Approval
http://news.discovery.com/tech/flying-car-gets-faa-approval.html
The Federal Aviation Administration has just removed a major hurdle from the path of a vehicle that may well be the first commercially viable flying car. The agency has agreed to classify the Terrafugia Transition as a Light Sport Aircraft, even though the vehicle is 120 pounds too heavy to qualify for that class. "Read more
by Jason Flowers
on The reality of flying cars

"Don't buy this hypothesis... They would very likely not have a lack for energy resources since they're traveling the stars. They solved that problem. Being that advanced, they'd also likely be able to synthesize any other resource at a molecular level.
So I don't see resources as a motivation, unless humans are the resource (slaves). I could see them being nomads as he imagines, but not looking for resources. More likely just a habitual environment to live, in which case, the Hawking outcome might be the same."Read more
by Jeff Gentes
on Don't talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking

"I agree. I notice that they do not dispute the actual findings (that it runs VERY hot), but instead complain about the inferences. Those inferences are nothing more than the viewer’s commonsense and reasoning kicking in..."Read more
by Anonymous
on QLogic sues Emulex over video of chip frying egg

"Sounds like QLogic has weak case to me. It's conventional wisdom that excessive heat is bad for electronics. The industry spends billions on cooling. Making a case that reduced heat increases reliability is logical."Read more
by Jeff Gentes
on QLogic sues Emulex over video of chip frying egg

We've loved Commodore USA'sC64 computer recreations ever since it began producing them back in 2010. Much to our delight, the company recently outed its third variant, the C64x Extreme. This unit features the '80s flair we've come to appreciate, but supercharged to 2011 spec. Crammed inside its case is a 2.2GHz Intel core i7 quad-core CPU (capable of turbo boosting to 3.3GHz), 8GB of DDR3 RAM, Intel HD integrated graphics and a spacious 2TB HDD.

In a letter sent to Oracle, HP executives reportedly said Oracle has a legal obligation to support Intels Itanium platform. - Hewlett-Packard officials are putting more pressure on Oracle to reverse its decision to end software development for Intel’s Itanium platform, reportedly sending the software giant a notice saying the decision violated contractual agreements with HP and harmed the companies 140,000 shared custom...

Until now, the conductive area of the transistors used in CPUs has been two-dimensional, which means that in order to pack a higher number of transistors within the same space, the transistors had to shrink to smaller sizes. Over the years, manufacturing tolerances have traditionally been the limiting factor in how small a transistor can get, but these CPU building blocks are now approaching a size where physics itself becomes a barrier to making them any smaller.

Intel's Finfet aims to work around this problem by building "fins" into the transistor structure, making the transistor's conductive area three-dimensional. Intel expects chips using this design to be 37 percent faster than current low-voltage chips while consuming half the power.

Not all chipmakers are convinced that going 3D is the right solution, and a few of them are taking a "wait and see" approach to Intel's Finfet technology. Intel plans to start producing chips using Finfet later this year.

Netflix announced last night that Canadian users will, by default, receive lower-quality—and lower-bandwidth—streaming video. The change was made to protect users, "because many Canadian Internet service providers unfortunately enforce monthly caps on the total amount of data consumed."

Fast Internet connections could previously chew through 30-70GB of data while streaming 30 hours of Netflix video in a month. Data caps for the Rogers cable operator and for Bell Canada start at 2GB per month; cable operator Shaw starts at 15GB.

Windows users who install the latest Java security patches may end up with a little more security than they bargained for, at least that's the risk they take if they don't pay close attention to the installation process. Starting last month, Oracle began bundling a security scanning tool called the McAfee Security Scan Plus with its Java updates for the Windows operating system. The software is installed by default with the Java update, so unless users notice and uncheck the McAfee installation box as they're updating Java, they'll end up downloading McAfee's software too.

Oracle's decision to stop supporting its products on Intel's Itanium chips drew a particularly harsh response from Hewlett-Packard, which ships the vast majority of servers that are based on the processor. An HP statement said the company was "shocked." HP has about 90 percent of the Itanium market, according to IDC.

PC World - Oracle is making a fresh run at Microsoft's SQL Server, claiming on Tuesday that its open-source MySQL database offers up to 90 percent cost savings over SQL Server along with blazing performance on Windows.

China reportedly is looking to build up its processor-making capabilities, with the hopes of using only China-built CPUs in its servers, most of which now rely on Intel, AMD and Nvidia. - Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, already seeing manufacturers of ARM-based processors taking aim at the server space currently dominated by x86-based systems, may soon have another competitor in the field: China. According to a recent report in the Chinese news service People's Daily Online, th...

A flash memory working group announced a new interface specification on Tuesday that could speed up data transfers from flash storage products such as solid-state drives inside computers and consumer electronics.

The ONFI (Open NAND Flash Interface) Working Group released the ONFI 3.0 controller specification, which allows for transfer of data at 400 megabytes per second. That is double the speed of the previous ONFI standard, ONFI 2.3, which was released last August.